Akriti Rastogi

Akriti Rastogi

Assistant Professor
akriti.rastogi@mahindrauniversity.edu.in

Akriti Rastogi is Assistant Professor in Film and Media Studies at the School of Media, Mahindra University, Hyderabad, India. She completed her PhD in Cinema Studies in May 2023, from the School of Arts and Aesthetics, New Delhi, and is an alumna of AJKMCRC, Jamia Millia Islamia, New Delhi. She received the Fulbright Nehru Doctoral Grant in 2019-20, and the ICSSR Doctoral Fellowship 2018 for her doctoral study. Her work is focused on the intersections of film, media and digital cultures. She has previously worked as Transmission Executive at the All India Radio, New Delhi.

2023

School of Arts and Aesthetics, JNU, New Delhi PhD, Cinema Studies, 2023 Dissertation: “Bollywoodization 2.0: Design Thinking in the Age of Cinema Effects” Advisor: Dr. Veena Hariharan

2016

School of Arts and Aesthetics, JNU, New Delhi MPhil, Cinema Studies, Grade A-, 2016 Dissertation: “The DIY Filmmaker in the Digital Age: The Indian Context” Advisor: Dr. Veena Hariharan

2013

J.K.M.C.R.C., Jamia Millia Islamia, New Delhi MA, Mass Communication; First Division (75%), 2013 Dissertation: “The influence of American situational comedy programs on the spoken English language of Urban Indian Youth” Advisor: Dr. Anandana Kapur

Miranda House, University of Delhi, New Delhi BSc (Hons.), Zoology; First Division (68.5%),

2011

2011 CSDS, New Delhi Certificate course on “Researching the Contemporary”, 2014

2019-20

Fulbright Nehru Doctoral Fellowship, New York University.

2017-18

ICSSR Doctoral Fellowship, Jawaharlal Nehru University.

December 2015

Qualified National Eligibility Test, December 2015, for Assistant Professor organized by Central Board for Secondary Education, New Delhi

Aug 2023

School of Media, Mahindra University, Hyderabad Assistant Professor, Aug 2023 – Teaching Courses and curriculum development for courses on Media, Mass Communication and Film Studies

January 2022 – May 2022

GITAM University, Hyderabad Assistant Professor, January 2022 – May 2022 Taught courses on Film and Media Studies and Visual Culture to undergraduate students, and managed curriculum development for the undergraduate courses in Media Studies and Visual Communication

Peer Reviewing Volunteer for a journal attached with MeCCSA (Media, Communication and Cultural Studies Association, UK)

August 2015- September 2017

News Services Division, All India Radio, New Delhi Transmission Executive/Studio Manager, August 2015- September 2017 Managed News Bulletin Productions

May-June 2012

What’s Up Bharat, New Delhi Summer Associate, Content, polling and Outreach team, May-June 2012 Created content for the alpha and beta phase of the launch of the website. Responsible for outreach to campuses across India and form a Yuva Bharat team that hosted WUB events and carried out discussions based on the social issue driven opinion polls.

Publications

  • Upcoming: “Indian Women Rising: Tracing Star and Screen Coordinates of the Hindi Film Industry post #MeToo”, chapter in an edited collection published by Routledge

  • “Back to the future: Return of the star as influencer." In S. De, A. Arya, M. Young, D. Ramesh, & J. Pal (Eds.) Social media and society in India (pp. 60–67). University of Michigan

  • “Data Prophesies and Soothsaying: Gatekeeping in the era of Platform Media” in Studies in South Asian Film and Media 15 (Media Studies and the Contemporary), June Issue. https://doi.org/10.1386/safm_00071_1.

  • “Deep-Rooted Images: Situating (Extra) Institutional Appropriations of Deepfakes in the US and India” (https://fastcapitalism.journal.library.uta.edu/index.php/fastcapitalism/article/view/453), published in Fast Capitalism Volume 19, Issue No.1, co-authored with Kailyn Slater, University of Illinois, Chicago

  • “Roots and Routes: Home and the world in Sooni Taraporevala’s Transnational storytelling”, chapter in an edited collection titled: Women Filmmakers in Contemporary Hindi cinema: Looking through their Gaze, edited by Aysha Iqbal Vishwamohan, published by Palgrave Macmillan

  • “The Crowd and the DIY filmmaker: A study of the DIY funding circuits of the Dilettante” (http://subversions.tiss.edu/home/akriti/), published in the journal Subversions hosted by School of Media and Cultural Studies, TISS, Mumbai

    • Conference Presentations

    • “Back to the Future: Return of the Star as an influencer”, at the Social Media and Society in India 2023 conference, organized by University of Michigan, April, 2023.
    • “The mise-en-scene of work”, session proposed for the Internet Researchers’ Conference 2022 – #Home, May, 2022
    • “Deepfake proxies in the era of social media: A case study of deepfake imagery in India and the US”, Proxies, Stand-ins and Warm Ups: a one-day virtual symposium exploring background labour and hidden performances within media and cultural industries organized by London School of Economics and University of Lund, April, 2022
    • “Augmented Reality: What Qualifies as a Star Image in the era of social media filters?”, Contemporary Cinema, Televisual and Digital Cultures: Aesthetics and Politics, a postgraduate student conference, organised and hosted by Department of Cinema Studies, School of Arts and Aesthetics, Jawaharlal Nehru University, October 2021
    • “Indian Women Rising: Female Star Portfolios in the Era of Digital Platforms”, Towards New Visions: Women in Films, Media and Beyond Virtual Conference, organised by University of Guelph, Canada and Indian Institute of Technology Madras (IITM), hosted by Canada India Research Centre for Learning and Engagement (CIRCLE), March 2021
    • “The Bollywood Star as a Deepfake Digital Assemblage” and “Mapping Anxieties Off-Screen: An Ethnographic Account of the Film Industry in Mumbai”, Society of Cinema and Media Studies Conference, organized by the Society for Cinema and Media Studies, March 2021
    • “Designing Soft Power Networks: Bollywoodization in the age of social media”, Media Mutations 11 – Media, Diplomacy and Soft Power, organized by University of Bologna, University of Antwerp and University of Lugano, May 2019
    • “Balancing Act: Mapping competition and collaboration in Hindi Film Industry”, Graduate Film Conference: Limits of Cinema/Cinema Limited? organized by Film and Media Studies GSO, University of Pittsburgh, September 2019
    • “#LegitLists – Form Follows function: List by Design” at the conference “Internet Researcher’s Conference 2019” organised by Centre for Internet and Society, Bangalore. Jan 30 – Feb 01, 2019
    • Participated in the Digital Humanities Workshop organised by Arts and Humanities Research Council. 11-12 April 2018
    • “Instagrammatically (In)correct: A study of transmedia celebrities of the Hindi Film Industry” at the conference “Desecrating Celebrity: Fourth Celebrity Studies Conference” Organized by Sapienza University, Rome. June 26-28 2018
    • “Screening the Viral Fever: Affective and Augmentative Responses in India” at the conference “Digital Cultures: Knowledge / Culture /Technology” organised by Centre for Digital Cultures (CDC), Leuphana University Lüneburg, and the Institute for Culture and Society (ICS), Western Sydney University. September 19-22, 2018
    • “#Cyberflesh”, Co-presented in a panel, Internet Researchers Conference 2018, organized by Centre for Internet and Society, Bangalore at the Sambhavana Institute, Kandbari, February 2018
    • “The DIY filmmaker in the Digital Age”, Collaboration and Competition in the Cultural and Creative Industries conference organized by ICCI (Institute of Creative and Cultural Industry) at USC – Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai, June 2017
    • “The DIY Filmmaker in the Digital Age”, Video Vortex XI edition, at Kochi, February 2017 “The crowd and the DIY filmmaker: A study of the DIY film-funding circuits in India”, Kick-Starting Media Symposium 2016, organized by Media Futures Research Centre at Bath Spa University, Bath, UK, June 2016
    • “Cinema 2.0 in India”, Internet Researcher’s Conference 2016, organized by Centre for Internet and Society, Bangalore, Feb 2016

    Invited Talks

    • “The Grapevine List: Hindi Film Industry Professionals post #MeToo” at the conference “#MeToo Moment in Our Film Industries” organised by Anveshi Research Centre for Women’s Studies, Hyderabad. March 29-30, 2019
    • “Salt to Taste: Reading Films in a Transnational World” at the Department of English Colloquium Series organized at Ashoka University, Sonepat. March 29, 2023.